See the bottom for a wikipedia definition. But essentially, its a print. Nowadays its tended to mean a Fine Art print of a painting, onto a canvas- so the print looks like a painting.

Its a great piece of technology with some good uses- but I personally am not a big fan.

I only like hand-painted art, as I think Giclee is a bit of a cheat! But that’s only my opinion…. what’s yours? At Portrait Xpress artists, all the art is done 100% by hand. Sure, its copied from people’s photo’s (thats the only way that you can get a painting made for USD 100 and it enables someone in Alabama to paint someone’s portrait in Yorkshire) but it’s still 100% hand painted.

What do you think of Giclee? is it good or bad? The useful thing about it is that Fine Art prints all can be printed to the same standard, which ensures easy quality control I guess.

Well, Wikipedia can tell you that Giclée (pronounced [ʒiːˈkleɪ] “zhee-clay” or /dʒiːˈkleɪ, from FrenchIPA: [ʒiˈkle]), is an invented name (i.e. a neologism) for the process of making fine artprints from a digitalink-jet printing. The word “giclée” is derived from the French language word “le gicleur” meaning “nozzle”, or more specifically “gicler” meaning “to squirt, spurt, or spray”[1]. It was coined by Jack Duganne, a printmaker working in the field, to represent any inkjet-based digital print used as fine art. The intent of that name was to distinguish commonly known industrial “Iris proofs” from the type of fine art prints artists were producing on those same types of printers. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on Iris printers in a process invented in the early 1990s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is often used in galleries and print shops to denote such prints.

Why not take some photos like this of your dog’s footprints, and then send the photo (well, send, or actually you can upload it also on-line) to Portrait Xpress and then their artists can PAINT this into a amazing painting, in vivid detail.

Because its a painting and not just a photo, it doesn’t matter if the original photo was small or blurred, a good painting can still be made.

Also, the painting can be made into a ‘Christmassy’ style.

So if you want to add mistletoe, reindeer, snow, carol-singers, its all possible!

There are many styles of paintings you can do if you are doing paintings.

This is pretty obvious I guess. But, if you order a bespoke painting tailor-made to your design, you can chose the style also.

One style that artists can do is impressionistic, where its a loose interpretation of the original image or design. For example, George Bush can be painted as follows- this is just slightly impressionistic.

Alternatively, things can be painted much MORE losely, or much more of a direct style.

Note also, that the painting can look different depending on what type of canvas is used. Ask the artist for a very smooth canvas if you want a relective/shiny surface or an image very similar to a photo.

Ask for a real canvas with a rough, more open weave texture, if you want a more natural feel to the painting.

If you are using a good artist then they should guide you through this process and be very hepful in helping you chose what style to paint your painting, and on what type of canvas. Really you should be able to get a great impressionistic painting (if that’s the style you like) made from your photo. If you like other styles (eg Dali), tell your artist, they should be able to paint it for you in a different way!